


You Can't Hold the Hand of a Rock and Roll Man

by ValueTurtle



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-25
Updated: 2013-01-24
Packaged: 2017-11-26 19:47:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/653795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ValueTurtle/pseuds/ValueTurtle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She really got caught up in the idea of him taking her out for music and dancing. Sort of like a date, really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Can't Hold the Hand of a Rock and Roll Man

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from the Okkervil River song of the same name.

Rose sidles up to him after she's had a shower and changed out of her old clothes; spending a night in a dungeon and running from werewolves tends to make you want a fresh t-shirt. He's hovering over the TARDIS console, glasses perched on his nose, and she nudges him with her hip to get his attention.

 

The Doctor smiles and presses a button before turning around so he's leaning against one of the spinning knob things, facing her. 'Right then! Ready for a new adventure? What do you say to sun, surf, sand – something to warm you up after all those windswept moors?'

 

She cocks her head to the side, affecting an expression of great contemplation. It _would_ be nice to see a bit of sun, especially if the Doctor decides to unwrap himself from some of his layers. It's not what she wants though – well, OK, yes the-Doctor-in-swim-trunks is exactly what she wants, but she'd really been caught up in the idea of him taking her out for music and dancing. Sort of like a date, really.

 

Rose scrunches her face and shakes her head. 'Nah, we can do that any old time. You promised me a concert,' she presses her finger into his chest, making him wobble slightly and his smile soften as he looks down at the impertinent digit poking him, 'an' we're not goin' anywhere until I see one.'

 

''Cor, you're demanding! One OBE and it goes straight to your head!' He exclaims, capturing her hand so it lies flat on his chest rather than prodding him. 'Still want to see Ian Dury, then?'

 

Another shake of her head. 'Oh, he's old news, grandpa. Gimme something more recent -,' the Doctor makes a dismissive noise, and she continues before he can interrupt, ' _relatively_ speakin'. Something I'd know an' like.'

 

He's still got her hand in his, clutched against the fine wool of his jacket. 'And what would Dame Rose Tyler of the Powell Estates like?'

 

Rose flashes him a cheeky grin, all eyes and teeth and tongue peeking out of the corner of her mouth. They're flirting, and it's dangerous and exhilarating and she won't stop until he does. 'You're the brainy Time Lord. Can't you figure it out by yourself?'

 

He taps a finger against her wrist and raises his eyebrows. 'Oh, it's like that, is it? Well,' he rolls the word around, tasting it, 'let's see. You're nineteen, so I think you've passed your punk stage – bet that would have been around thirteen or fourteen for you. Angry Rose Tyler with too much eye make up – you still do that – listening to The Clash and The Sex Pistols in ripped up jeans.'

 

She gapes at him, shocked – though she shouldn't be, he's the Doctor – at the accurate image he's painted of her at thirteen. Stolen CDs stuffed under her jumper. Coughing on cigarettes Shareen's brother bought them. Filling the flat with the sound of loud guitars because Jackie's at the pub for the third night in a row and the world is full of shit and hypocrites.

 

The Doctor looks at her, eyes shrewd and piercing. Rose swallows, nervous at having his considerable attention focused on her. 'You were angry, angry for real reasons, not like the boys at the record store who hated their dads for having high expectations and low-paying jobs. And so you got disillusioned. You put away your Doc Martens and your leather jacket and learnt to make friends with the airheads you used to hate.'

 

Her eyes widen, and she wants to pull away, a little scared now. 'Doctor...'

 

'No, no, I'm on a roll now! I forgot how brilliant I am at this game!' He closes his eyes and leans further back against the TARDIS control, his thumb brushing over the back of her hand. She shivers, and she's not sure if it's from the contact, or from the way she feels caught by him as he delves into her past. 'Let's see, where was I? Oh yes, airheads. Now, _those_ girls liked pop stars and boy bands. Simple, over-produced stuff that was everywhere. You smiled and laughed and learnt all the words to Britney Spears even though you rolled your eyes when you got home. You never complained, though, because you were never sure if they would still invite you over if you did.'

 

Rose bites her lip, his words causing a sharp pain in her chest as she remembers what it was like to be fourteen and just a bit weird. Just a little too smart to go with the flow, but not smart enough to fly above them all. So she'd convinced everyone around her – even her mum – that she was the very model of a teenage girl, like she'd popped out fully formed from a mould. And Jackie had loved it. Loved having a normal daughter who brought home girls her age who wanted their hair dyed and to stay up late gossipping about boys. And Rose had liked some of it, too: the smell of nail polish and the taste of bubblegum lipgloss; having a friend to call when she got her period, and to complain about Mickey not driving her somewhere. But it had always felt like an act, like nonsense you stuff your life with to cover up the emptiness.

 

The Doctor is watching her again. When he sees he has her attention, he continues. 'You still lurked at the edges, though, making friends with the outsiders – you still do that, too – because you know what it's like to be different, to only have a mum when your friends had siblings and step-brothers and half-sisters and shared custody. You collected musicians, because they could express themselves where you couldn't.'

 

Rose steps away now, tugging her hand out of his grip, not wanting to hear it. It's not fun anymore, this game – if it ever truly was a game. She knows where he's heading, can feel the inevitability of it like a slow drip of ice water down her back. 'No,' she murmurs, putting some distance between them. It's no use; his eyes pin her against a coral strut, keeping there as forcefully as his hands would, if they weren't in his pockets.

 

'You liked the softly spoken ones, the romantics,' he nearly sneers the word. His eyes are cold, unflinching even as he bares her soul. 'Ones who wrote lyrics that meant more to you than anything else ever did. You snuck into pubs to see them perform, exchanging crumpled up pound notes for CDs burnt on their friend's computer. Gave them that smile – the one where you catch your tongue in your teeth – and flirted with them; fell in love with them over songs with clever titles, like “Violet”, or “Daisy”. Let them draw lyrics on your hip with biro and borrow a few hundred quid for a new amp, and then all you're left with is a broken heart and a few songs that don't even have your name in them.'

 

She only notices she's slapped him when the stinging in her palm makes her wince. Looking down, she spots a red mark spreading across her hand, livid and painful. The Doctor is clinging to the padded railing with one arm and touching his face with tentative fingers. There is a Rose Tyler hand print on his lower jaw, pink and angry, but not as much as her. 'You bastard,' she hisses.

 

He nods, agreeing. 'I'm sorry – I'm so sorry,' the Doctor says, voice thick. When he lifts his head, his face is contrite, his brown eyes huge and remorseful, no longer the unfeeling stone of before. 'I got tangled up in the time lines and couldn't stop. Didn't want to stop. It's no excuse. I'm sorry. Truly, I am.'

 

Rose struggles not to slap him again for looking so pathetically apologetic. She wants to be angry at him: it is better than feeling regret at her past, or ashamed of her younger self. 'You had _no_ right.'

 

The Doctor gets to his feet and approaches her carefully. 'I know. I'll never do it again, I promise. Please forgive me?'

 

She can't stay in the control room, can't be around him right now. Rose presses her lips together and shakes her head – not a denial of forgiveness, no, she'll give that to him – but just rejecting his presence altogether. Brushing past, eyes firmly on the floor, she quickly walks back down the corridor and into her room. He doesn't follow her, and she's glad; he's invaded her privacy enough for one afternoon, and she doesn't really want to hit him again.

 

In the mirror she can see her face is red, splotchy. _Attractive_ , she thinks, snorting to herself. She started to cry on the walk back, and now there are tracks of mascara running down her cheeks. Taking a tissue, Rose carefully wipes away the make up. _Too much, he said. Was that supposed to be an insult?_ Feeling incredibly drained, she collapses onto the bed, all loose-limbed, uncaring that she's making her shirt wrinkle.

 

Rose sighs, hating the feeling of betrayal blossoming in her chest. She's never hidden anything from him. She's given away all her secrets just to see him smile or laugh or to get him to share some morsel of his own past with her. Why would he feel the need to peek into her history? To just trample over those tender moments of awkwardness and heart break and teenage self-pity? _Maybe it's an alien thing. Or a 900-year-old Time Lord thing. Maybe you just kinda forget what it's like when it's been over 800 years since your first kiss._ He'd seemed so intent on unravelling her; she'd felt, smothered under the weight of his gaze, like so many of the adversaries they came across in their travels – nothing more than a puzzle for him to solve.

 

She flips on to her belly and swings herself over the side of the bed, reaching underneath the mattress for a beaten up shoebox. Removing the lid, she looks inside. She's got old ticket stubs and playlists from bands written on paper plates and flyers. There are loose cds, copper coloured and titled with permanent marker (“Rose's Mix Tape”, one says erroneously, and “Songs for Shagging To” - a birthday present from Shareen). 

 

A notebook bristles with bits of paper and Post-Its. She opens it carefully, holding it over the duvet, and everything spills out: receipts for chips and tea; half-written lyrics for a song called “Iris” (she sighs); strips of photobooth pictures where she's kissing Jimmy so hard, her hands burrowing into his too-long hair – he apes for the camera, grinning under her lips. Inside the notebook there are short, hurried entries, little reminders for the Year That Never Was – that's what she calls it in her head, when she thinks back to the cramped bed-sit and how happy she'd been until she wasn't. _Get milk, rice, sugar,_ she writes in January, and _Jimmy Stone says I kiss like the world is ending_. In February they spent two weeks without power and she stole fifty quid from her mum's purse one Monday morning so she could put the heat back on – she carefully wrote down an IOU. Rose remembers how proud she felt when she slipped her first pay from Henrik's into Jackie's bag, and the feel of her mum hugging her wordlessly when she opened her wallet later that day.

 

The Doctor's shoes are nearly silent on the corridor's metal grating, but her ears – her entire body – is so tuned in to him, that she can pick it up over the humming of the TARDIS.

 

'You made it sound cheap,' she says, not looking up from the notebook. He's tense, standing just outside the door, waiting for permission. 'Like I was just some groupie and he took advantage of me.'

 

'Didn't he?' The Doctor asks, very, very quietly.

 

'No, he didn't,' she says flatly, picking up the detritus, proof that she had a life before meeting a Northern alien in a basement. It wasn't much of a life, just fluff and hard work and never enough money and settling for second best, but it was _human_ , and real, and tangible – how could he ever understand this? Rose quickly slips the papers and photographs back between the pages of the book where they belong.

 

'I was old enough to know what I wanted an' I wanted out of the Powell Estate,' she tells him. 'Even if that meant going to work at 10PM and cleaning up offices until 6 in the mornin', having Pot Noodle for lunch everyday. Even if it meant fallin' in love with someone I shouldn't've.' She closes the cover firmly and wraps a hair-band around it, keeping all the extra pieces in place. Rose looks up at him, unsurprised at his expression – completely unreadable. 'I made my choice, an' I stuck with it.'

 

He sighs. Rubs a hand over his tired face. 'You did. You're right.' The Doctor gestures to her room in, asking wordlessly for permission to enter.

 

She agrees with a nod, shifting on the bed so he can sit down beside her. In the dim light she can barely make out the mark on his jaw. She wonders if it's healed already.

 

'I shouldn't have looked at your history like that,' he begins earnestly. 'It was wrong. Cruel, even.' There's a pause, and she can tell, from experience, that he's calculating the odds she'll respond positively to his next statement. They must be in his favour, because he affects a posh, plummy voice and says: 'Definitely an abuse of my brainy, Time Lord powers.' He leans in closer, looking for the smile that Rose knows is faintly curling the edges of her mouth. 'Can you forgive me?'

 

She already has – was ready to accept his apology in the control room, if she's being truthful – but it's a lot easier to after he's identified exactly what he's done wrong. Plus he's like a chastised child right now, and that's not a look she likes on him, so she nods and lets the Doctor envelop her in a huge hug, his arms wrapping around her. Rose leans her head on his shoulder and mumbles into his neck: 'You're such a git. Anyone else'd just look at my iPod.'

 

'Yeah, but you know me. Why do something the easy way, eh?' The Doctor moves back a bit, eyes roving over her face to see if she's all right – if _they're_ all right. Of course they are: they always are. 'If it means anything, I think I've got just the right gig for you.'

 

She gnaws on her lip, considering. As painful as that trip down memory lane had been, a concert is just what they need right now: something loud and busy and where they'd get to move. They always work best when their brains shut up and their bodies take charge – running, or jumping, or climbing, or dancing. 'Yeah, sounds good,' Rose says. 'Dressed all right?'

 

He gives her a once over. 'It'll be a bit cold – grab a jacket.'


End file.
